Making Movies Work: Thinking Like a Filmmaker

The first question that filmmakers ask themselves isn’t, “Is this brilliant?” But, “Does this work?”

Making Movies Work, a fascinating and accessible guide for both filmmakers and serious film fans, is about how filmmakers think about film.

To this end, the author identifies three ways in which we, both filmmakers and audience, watch movies. Then, through practical examples, he demonstrates how, at any given moment, the way we watch dictates its own rules of time and space and demands its own set of film techniques to address them.

Jon Boorstin is a writer for both films and television and filmmaker who has made award-winning documentaries, including the Oscar-nominated Exploratorium. He was the associate producer of All the President’s Men and writer/producer of Dream Lover. He also has written two novels, Pay or Play (Siles Press) and The Newsboys' Lodging-House (Viking).